Author
Topic: LinuxMCE with Raid-5 and LVM? (Read 2156 times)

Hi is it possible to install LinuxMCE on partition with Raid-5 (3 hard drives) and also use LVM for future expansion?I'm about to install my first LinuxMCE and I would like to have a more advances setup so I hope there is a way to do this.

I don't think you can install direct to RAID. I tried doing it by installing to a single disk, setting up the mds, copying the filesystem across, and editing fstab and lilo configuration. It boots up fine, but linuxmce also picks up the md device as a potential storage device, and wants to add it to the list of storage devices (in its irritating way of asking persistently, not taking no for an answer). If you make the mistake of saying yes, you will get all the silly little system sounds and images listed amongst your media. It will work if you are careful, but it could be friendlier.

I don't think you can install direct to RAID. I tried doing it by installing to a single disk, setting up the mds, copying the filesystem across, and editing fstab and lilo configuration. It boots up fine, but linuxmce also picks up the md device as a potential storage device, and wants to add it to the list of storage devices (in its irritating way of asking persistently, not taking no for an answer). If you make the mistake of saying yes, you will get all the silly little system sounds and images listed amongst your media. It will work if you are careful, but it could be friendlier.

If I install LinuxMCE to a separate disk ant then if I setup raid and lvm on other disks and copy the /boot folder to non-lvm separate partition and other to lvm this should work? Of course I would also need to reinstall grub.

no, none of these configurations are supported, and will ultimately mess up the storage radar. PLEASE DO NOT DO THEM.

Just set up disks in the RAID section of the web admin.. and you can add more sets of disks for more RAIDs... LinuxMCE will automatically pick the volume (be it a single internal disk, external usb disk, RAID, or NAS share) with the most storage space available to store media onto, so don't worry about future expansion so much.

My recommendation is a small system disk for LinuxMCE (40+GB) which you do not store media on. This simplifies DVD upgrades/reinstalls. Then add whatever media disks you want to your core (space/heat considerations limit me to 1TB drive in my core/hybrid). You can use LinuxMCE to RAID these internal media drives as Thom described. For additional storage just use NAS. I prefer NFS as I don't run windows any more, but CIFS/samba is reported to work fine. On your NAS feel free to use RAIDs, JBOD, whatever. I set up a single NFS export on each of my NAS servers, then use LVM to create a single volume (JBOD) from multiple disks/RAIDs.

I don't think you can install direct to RAID. I tried doing it by installing to a single disk, setting up the mds, copying the filesystem across, and editing fstab and lilo configuration. It boots up fine, but linuxmce also picks up the md device as a potential storage device, and wants to add it to the list of storage devices (in its irritating way of asking persistently, not taking no for an answer). If you make the mistake of saying yes, you will get all the silly little system sounds and images listed amongst your media. It will work if you are careful, but it could be friendlier.

If I install LinuxMCE to a separate disk ant then if I setup raid and lvm on other disks and copy the /boot folder to non-lvm separate partition and other to lvm this should work? Of course I would also need to reinstall grub.

Your getting very sound advice here from Thom and others... if you want to actually use your system I would just take the advice onboard ;-)